In the coming years an increasing number of Americans will come to expect that their police officers be equipped with body cameras. Advances in technology will make this expectation more pronounced as the cost of using police body cameras decreases.

While police body cameras do have potential to improve law enforcement accountability and provide extra evidence, they are not a police misconduct panacea. Reducing incidents of police misconduct requires not only body cameras, but also reforms of use-of-force policy and training as well as changes to how police misconduct is investigated.

It is still too soon to tell. As mentioned above, it is not yet clear what effect, if any, body cameras have on citizens or police officers. In addition, it is the case that instances of police misconduct have occurred despite the officers involved wearing body cameras. This shouldn’t be too surprising given that police officers have been caught behaving poorly in front of dash cams.

The research on police body cameras is limited but encouraging.

Police body cameras do pose privacy concerns, but those concerns can be resolved with the right policies in place.

The public widely supports police officers wearing body cameras, but the technology alone is not a panacea for police misconduct.